TUCSON -- They filed into the second-floor courtroom in pairs, in small groups, following court liaisons who would help these survivors of the shooting find a seat and, from there, find whatever else they sought.

They greeted one another with quiet smiles and hugs. They admired a baby girl who was born since the Jan. 8, 2011, attack outside a Tucson-area Safeway. They found comfort to quell their nervousness.

Among the last to arrive, entering through a side door, were former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly. Giffords was the target of the shooter, Jared Loughner, the man whose actions had thrown these people together that winter morning.

As the hearing in the federal courthouse moved forward, the survivors began to speak, each telling his or her story — the beginning, 22 months ago in a hail of bullets, and now, on this day, the end.

“I will never forget the horror of that day, but I’ve decided that adding anger to the burden will do no good,” said Pam Simon, who worked on Giffords’ staff in 2008 and who was shot twice when Loughner opened fire in front of the grocery store. “And I want to make sure something good comes out of this tragedy.”

The surviving victims of the attack, in which Loughner killed six people and wounded 13 at a public event for Giffords, came to speak at Loughner’s sentencing hearing for their own reasons, but nearly all of them wanted the same three things.

They wanted to leave a record of their losses, their wounds and the friends and relatives who had died.

They wanted to make those losses count for something — a greater commitment to mental-health services for people like Loughner, they said, or political action on gun control.

And they wanted something else out of the day: to be finished with this. To move on and live life, no matter how difficult.

The sentence Loughner received, seven consecutive life terms plus 140 years, ensures he will never walk free again. After the hearing, Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall read a letter signed by most of the survivors and families of victims asking her not to further prosecute Loughner.

Suzi Hileman had come to Giffords’ event with her friend and neighbor, 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, who died that day.

Hileman said that she had been teary the morning of the hearing but that Giffords had looked at her, clenched her fist and said a single word twice: “Strong. Strong.”

In court, some of the survivors stood to address Loughner directly, their emotions clearly raw. Most left the impression that they were satisfied with a sentence that allowed him to live. But they also wanted him to know what he had done to them and their lives.

Sara Hummel Rajca was taking pictures for Giffords on the day of the shooting, one of her many tasks as a staff member. She wasn’t shot, but she saw Loughner raise his arm and start to fire. She talked about the images that linger still.

“I see the memories, the images, seeing a blue Toyota like the one I had, seeing a picture of the Tucson sign I have hanging on my wall, seeing an election commercial,” she said. “Or when there’s something I want to tell Gabe about.”

Gabe Zimmerman, one of the six people killed in the shooting, was a favorite of the Giffords staff and frequently mentioned on Thursday.

In the most anticipated moment of the day, Giffords and Kelly addressed the court. Kelly, a retired astronaut and naval officer, read a statement while Giffords stood at his side, watching Loughner, steady, unwavering.

“Mr. Loughner, for the first and last time, you are going to hear directly from Gabby and me about what you took away on January 8, 2011, and, just as important, what you did not,” Kelly said, his voice as firm as his stance. “So, pay attention.”

Kelly talked about the victims, those who had died, those whose lives had forever changed, and his wife, who had lost some of the things that had made her who she was.

“Gabby struggles to walk,” he said. “Her right arm is paralyzed. She is partially blind. Gabby works harder in one minute of an hour, fighting to make each individual moment count for something, than most of us work in an entire day.”

He, too, asked for something greater to emerge from the shooting. He chided Arizona leaders for ignoring the risks of guns, singling out Gov. Jan Brewer and the Legislature.

He also told Lougher that the killerhad failed in his attempt to drag people into his dark and evil world, that he had failed in his attempt to put out Giffords’ spark. “You may have put a bullet through her head, but you haven’t put a dent in her spirit and her commitment to make the world a better place,” he said.

Mavy Stoddard survived the shooting. Her husband, Dorwan, died trying to protect her from the gunfire.

“When you took my precious husband, you ruined my whole life,” Stoddard told Loughner, her gaze unwavering. “When you shot him, he was saving my life. He was on top of me, and I felt his body give as you shot him in the left temple. I held him as he died, and I was screaming ‘Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God! Help this man!’”

Over the chaos, she said she heard Dorwan breathe. “I believe he heard me saying, ‘I love you … I’m not hurt.’ Then I passed out because you had shot me. Otherwise, I could never have left him on that cold concrete. Do you know how much that haunts me?”

Her face showed her anger and her grief. But then, Stoddard made the day an ending.

“It took me over a year to be able to say this,” she said, her voice still strong. Of all who spoke to Loughner, she would be the only one to say it outright.

“I forgive you,” she said. “I do not hate you. I hate the act you performed. That was very hard, but as a Christian, I have no choice.”

Hileman has worked at physical therapy for two years to erase the limp from the bullets that shattered her hip and lodged in her leg. It is hardly noticeable now.

Earlier this month, Hileman set her cane down and, wearing sparkly pink Converse shoes, she danced at her daughter’s wedding reception in the backyard.

When she stood Thursday to speak to Loughner, she was resolute.

“We’ve been told about your demons,” she said. “Your parents, your school, your community all failed you. But still there are those pesky facts. You pointed a weapon and shot me three times. You turned a civics lesson into a nightmare.”

For a moment, Hileman seemed ready to express a more visceral anger, describing times when she wanted to grab Loughner by the shoulders and shake him and scream at him.

Then, she took a breath.

“Now, I will walk out of this courtroom into the rest of my life,” she said. “And I will not think of you again.”

It was the victims’ refrain.

“For us, life goes on,” said U.S. Rep. Ron Barber, the wounded staff member who would replace Giffords in Congress. “I’m grateful all of us will be spared the ordeal of a lengthy legal process and endless appeals.”

Then, from Kelly to Loughner: “You have decades upon decades to contemplate what you did. But after today, at this moment, here and now, Gabby and I are done thinking about you.”

Loughner would leave the courtroom to fly back to a federal prison in Springfield, Mo.

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